Manning passed away at the North Manchester General Hospital, where doctors had been treating him for a kidney problem.

He had been treated at the hospital for two weeks and had been taken into intensive care over the weekend.
But his son Bernard junior told the Manchester Evening News he thought his father's health was improving.
Showbiz agent Mickey Martin, a close friend of the comedian, told the paper: "I was going to visit him today but young Bernard called to say he's gone.

"It's come all of a sudden as we thought he was on the mend."

Mr Martin added: "He was the godfather of The Comedians and it's a sad loss to Manchester as well as to the world of comedy."
Manning's controversial style of comedy won him fans and enemies in equal measure.
To his fans he was a legend who stuck two fingers up at political correctness; an old-style comic who told it as it was and who targeted anyone and everyone.
But to his critics he was a racist who pedalled dated, sexist, homophobic jokes.
Manning shot to fame in the 1970s when he appeared in the ITV stand-up show The Comedians alongside Stan Boardman and Frank Carson.
"Bernard was a stalwart of The Comedians. We were working-class comics and appearing on that show changed our lives completely.
"He loved working and he kept working right until the end.
He added: "All these new comedians came in, but how many of them can you remember? There have been millions of them, they came and went. But Bernard carried on performing."
Carson said: "He used to make gags about the Irish to me. When I'd come into the room he'd say 'does anyone smell Semtex' and I wouldn't take offence. Many of his Indian neighbours used to make him curries."
In recent years Manning suffered from diabetes and ill health.
Earlier this month he cancelled a gig for the first time in 60 years after he was taken to hospital with a kidney problem.
Carson said: "He'd been suffering for many years. He had three injections a day for diabetes, was stone deaf in one ear, and his sight was going due to the diabetes.
"He was really suffering. Some days he couldn't even speak."
Manning leaves a son, Bernard, and three grandchildren.

Gold Member

I think the American members are somewhat lost on this reference. I don't think Bernard Manning appeared on popular UK shows that were re-broadcast here in the US. What caricatures did he do? .. .racialized imitations of Pakistani immigrants? What else?

What caricatures did he do? .. .racialized imitations of Pakistani immigrants? What else?

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Nope, that absolutely isn't what he did.

Below are some of the 'jokes' he told in 1995, at a Charity Fundraiser for the Manchester Police. The event was attended by 300 police officers, and upon spotting a black officer in the predominately white audience, Manning singled him out with the following 'gags', delivered - as per his usual style - without a hint of irony: "How are you, baby? Having a night out with nice people? Isn't this better than swinging from the trees?"

"They actually think they're English because they are born here. That means if a dog's born in a stable, it is a horse."

"A Liverpool docker went to South Africa for a job. The boss tells him: 'It's people like you we want here. Here's a test. There's a revolver, go out and shoot six niggers and a rabbit.' The docker asks: 'Why do I have to shoot the rabbit?' --- he got the job."

Manning's supporters would tell you it was all intended ironically... but Manning consistently (over a period of decades) made similar statements off-stage as well as on-stage, and certainly never let a hint of irony be seen in all that time.

I remember his notorious interview with Caroline Aherne (of The Royle Family) on the BBC in 1998, when he voiced the opinion that no Indians fought in World War Two, because his brother was there and didn't see any (incredible reasoning, to say the least)... while also relating a 'humorous' anecdote about how he was being chauffered in his Rolls Royce in a storm, when he spotted a guy at the side of the road, thumbing for a lift. As per Bernard, he gave the guy a lift to his front door. And then the 'punchline': it's lucky the guy wasn't black, or he'd still have been standing at the side of the road.

There can be no doubt that Manning did engender much debate about racism whenever he appeared on television in the 1990s; but how much that positive debate was his intent is another matter entirely imho. To my mind, he was a has-been comedian who, upon realising he was 'washed up' career-wise, took the cynical approach of unleashing racist vitriol in order to focus attention on himself anew.

His supporters contend that Manning was simply a 'reflection of the northern (British) comedy club circuit' of his time. However... when one thinks of at least one other fondly-remembered comedian from that circuit --- Les Dawson --- one recalls a man whose act never set out to offend, and which was steeped in irony and self-deprecation; the latter a quality that could of course find no place in Manning's sneering, belittling routines.

One last thing: I may have killed Bernard Manning. Two days ago, I said to a friend: "Bernard Manning can't keep on much longer, I shouldn't think." And today this. Draw your own conclusions.

His supporters contend that Manning was simply a 'reflection of the northern (British) comedy club circuit' of his time. However... when one thinks of at least one other fondly-remembered comedian from that circuit --- Les Dawson --- one recalls a man whose act never set out to offend, and which was steeped in irony and self-deprecation; the latter a quality that could of course find no place in Manning's sneering, belittling routines.

One last thing: I may have killed Bernard Manning. Two days ago, I said to a friend: "Bernard Manning can't keep on much longer, I shouldn't think." And today this. Draw your own conclusions.

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Well thank you for the voodoo curse Alex...well done! Now Les dawson was a funny man...loved his piano piece!

And The Fast Show with John Thomson taking the piss out of Bernard Manning. - Classic!

Those aren't jokes, they are just insults. I would have thought people would walk out. Surprised he was able to make a living.(never heard of him previously)

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And yet people did laugh.

I've often thought of Manning as the "Joseph Goebbels of comedy"... just as Goebbels worked up the crowd to shout enthusiastically in support of 'total war' during his infamous 1943 speech at the Sportpalast, so Manning would work an audience up with reasonably innocuous 'gags', before launching into one of his race-centered tirades, with the cumulative effect of the whole somehow continuing to elicit laughter at that point.

As for Manning being able to make a living: he was always the first to remind people that he was a multi-millionaire who had 'come from nothing' as a working-class entertainer; which he claimed was evidence for the popularity of his brand of comedy.

In fact, most of Manning's millions stemmed from a previous (now forgotten) career as a crooner and master of ceremonies, and, from 1959, as the owner of the highly successful Embassy Comedy Club. In later years, it was primarily at this venue that he appeared at all.

Laughter is contagious. How many times have you been with a group of friends and someone cracks a rubbish joke, yet everyone burts out in uncontrollable laughter?

I once saw a documentary about what makes us laugh - It had a comedian on a chat show (can't remember who or on what!) and they isolated the audence sound. They played the joke the comedian said with the sound of the audience laughing and it seemed like the joke was quite funny. Then they played the same joke with silence; all of a sudden it seemed less funny.